From the left end of the spectrum, I asked whether the fact a certain production will be staged in a church will keep away some people who have no interest in spending money on a religious establishment – even if the cash from the ticket is going strictly to the building.

They doubt this, as do I, given that in little old Brockville, the population of radical leftist atheists is small enough to fill up the comments on a Facebook post and still leave enough room for someone’s cat picture.

Then I came at it form the conservative side and hit them with every reporter’s secret guilty pleasure – a cringeworthy question.

What, I asked, would be the congregation’s reaction to the church space hosting an edgy play with a social mission like, say, The Vagina Monologues?

I got my cringe, albeit couched in polite laughter.

The point here is that the convergence of the sacred and secular in an arts venue is a matter of compromise.

Both sides are operating from a position of absolute truth: The church-goer comes from a place of absolute truth as revealed in Scripture and religious doctrine, while the artist, even the most self-ironic exponent of moral or cultural relativism, is trying to show us some kind of fundamental reality.

When one of these enters the other’s space, there will be at least some give on both sides.

Even a church as liberal-minded as the United Church is not likely to stage a play celebrating the power of the V-word.

“We are careful about the content,” said Coyea.

“We obviously are trying to respect the church in that way.”

The church council is putting together a “values proposition” that will be included in contracts with performers, clauses that will establish a set of standards they must follow to respect the church.

“It shouldn’t frighten anyone away,” Coyea later messaged me.

“We just want to show some respect for the space and our congregation. We’re quite liberal but we’d like to maintain some control.”

Extremes aside, this has worked so far.

The first play staged in what was then a partially converted space was Michael Healey’s The Drawer Boy in March.

Over a Twitter conversation Thursday, Healey noted that, “depending on the version of the script used, it’s possible there was ‘Eeezuz Rice’ and a couple of goddammits” in the dialogue.

However, director Lisa Leroux “never brought it up, and if she had I would have told her to change or cut them.”

I can’t recall whether the Eeezus or goddammits were in there for the St. John’s United version, but in this case the two sides were more than willing to compromise.

It’s also hard to imagine any issue arising from the lineup scheduled to perform at St. John’s United for the rest of this year, in which some of the shows are actually religious.

At most, the art workshops scheduled for later this month might have to take heed of the subject matter, while Cadence, which performs in late October courtesy of the Brockville Concert Association, might have to keep the jazz standards clean (most of them are).

It will be fascinating to watch where this give-and-take takes the St. John’s United community in the future, especially as the young people in Youth Opportunities in the Arts (YOA), housed in the hall below, follow the eternal prerogative of youth to push boundaries and tweak the noses of elders.

This push-and-pull of norms is locally specific, and in this case, one hopes, the strongest local force exerted on the process will be the desire to keep this wonderful piece of downtown architecture open.

For the shrinking congregation, that’s the clear imperative.

“The idea is that they will persevere and as long as there’s a group that wants to worship here ... it’ll be here,” said Coyea.

That might be worth the occasional nose-tweak.

City hall reporter Ronald Zajac can be reached by email at Rzajac@Postmedia.com.